PRO FOOTBALL; Feely Likes To Mix Things Up On the Field

By MICHAEL WEINREB

Published: August 8, 2006

The closest Jay Feely will come to a full-contact drill in training camp is pushing around a 30-pound medicine ball or playing chess against his roommates, linebackers LaVar Arrington and Brandon Short. Such is life for Feely, and often it is not enough.

Feely realizes his leg is one of the most valuable assets the Giants will have this season. Last season, he led the Giants with 148 points. But the moments that stand out in Feely's mind are the ones in which his entire body is involved.

''Some of my favorite plays are the tackles that I've made,'' Feely said Monday. ''That, to me, is playing football. I know field goals are very important, but it's separate.''

With Feely and Jeff Feagles, their 40-year-old punter, who was coaxed out of retirement by Coach Tom Coughlin, the Giants appear to have one of the most reliable kicking tandems in the league.

For a team with lofty expectations, it is one less thing to worry about in the preseason.

It has prompted Feely, who has no real competition for his job, to enjoy one of the more relaxed training camps of his career -- even after an unnamed teammate slipped a dye pack into his shorts Sunday, rendering his upper legs a bright shade of blue. (Feely, who has been on the other end of such mischief, vowed revenge.)

A major reason Feely, 30, is having so much fun in this camp is his choice of roommates. In Arrington and Short, two former Penn State teammates, Feely, a Michigan graduate, has found a pair of natural adversaries. They play chess -- Feely calls himself a ''newbie'' to the game, and says Short and the team chaplain, George McGovern, wind up winning most of their games.

They also stay up late, locked in spirited discussions about religion and politics, the sort of back-and-forth combat that Feely cannot often engage in on the practice field.

Feely said he was having his roommates read the book ''What's So Great About America'' by Dinesh D'Souza, a senior policy analyst in the Reagan administration. ''Brandon and I are very opinionated,'' Feely said. ''We like to discuss these things, and none of us are going to get our feelings hurt when we disagree.''

Feely concedes that he has learned how to better prepare himself for the rigors of kicking over a long season. Instead of spending the off-season working on leg strength, Feely, after enduring back trouble last season, decided to work on his core strength -- hence, the medicine ball.

''What I've learned to do is come in with my body in shape, and then ramp up my leg strength,'' he said. ''For instance, Sunday night was the first time I felt that I was really popping the ball.''

It does not hurt that Feely's holder is Feagles, who told the Giants that he was retiring after last season's playoff loss to Carolina. Coughlin, however, was not willing to allow that to happen, not even with a punter who turned 40 in March.

''I was hoping that at the end of the season, that I could just slow him down a bit from his radical decision, because he's young and he had a really good year last year,'' Coughlin said of Feagles, who averaged 42.1 yards a punt and last season surpassed the N.F.L. record for consecutive games played set by defensive end Jim Marshall.

Feely said he did not think Feagles would come back. But for someone who likes to stir things up, he is more than happy to enter the season with such stability surrounding him.

EXTRA POINTS

Guard Chris Snee, who injured his knee during a workout Sunday night, continues to be evaluated. Tom Coughlin said the Giants would know more when they see how the knee responded to treatment. Running back Brandon Jacobs (irregular heartbeat) was back on the practice field Monday after having tests. Coughlin said that running back Derrick Ward broke his foot when he fell while walking sometime between the morning and evening workouts Sunday. LaVar Arrington sat out practice for the second straight day with soreness and swelling in his right knee.

Photo: Jay Feely (2) has no real competition for his job this season. He led the Giants with 148 points last season, his first with the team. (Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)